


On The Verge

by redfantasyfox



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Fluff and Smut, F/M, First Time, Mutual Pining, Rebelcaptain - Freeform, Sharing a Bed, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-30
Updated: 2017-04-04
Packaged: 2018-10-12 19:41:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10498143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redfantasyfox/pseuds/redfantasyfox
Summary: “Then share the bed with me,” he whispers, edging closer, looking down towards her face. He touches her cheek, filling both of his hands with the shape of her body. “Stay with me, if you want.”Alternative description: a University AU where Jyn's apartment floods, Cassian gives her a place to stay, and where everywhere they sleep is too small to fit two people.





	1. Chapter 1

Jyn knows the way to Cassian’s apartment by heart, not because she’s been there (she hasn’t yet, and if the circumstances were different, maybe she never would be), but because she’s been trying to convince herself for the last hour to knock on his front door.

This is her fifth attempt tonight, just as halfhearted and uninspired as all the rest, but this time her cell phone buzzes, and Bodhi’s cheerful ringtone calms something turbulent and angry instead her chest. She answers after a heartbeat or two, and his voice holds no edge of doubt. “Have you settled in okay?” he asks. “I know it’s not a big place, but the couch is alright. Did K-2 give you a hard time?”

Jyn steadies her breathing, steels herself so that only her eyes would give her away—and there's no way Bodhi can see them from where he is. “Everything’s fine,” she says. “Don’t worry. I’ll see you in the morning.”

She hangs up quickly, but not before picturing him perched on the corner of a kitchen chair, sliding his cell phone into his pocket before heading to bed. He thinks she's safe, and warm, and bundled under the extra sheets of a man she hardly knows. He’d never imagine her out here, sitting under a streetlamp, her suitcase in the dirt by her side.

It takes more of her resolve than she believes she has, but eventually she summons the courage to walk across the street to the little building labelled _113_. A newer building, but trapped between two massive houses it looks both stunted and small, the front steps bordered by a railing with black paint that’s already pealing.

She knocks on Cassian’s door exactly once, and when he doesn’t answer right away, she turns to face the stairs. This was a stupid idea to begin with, but she remembers the look on Bodhi’s face, the promise he’d whispered to her when he’d taken her hand. “You can’t go back to your apartment,” he’d said. “It’ll take weeks for your landlord to clean out the mold from the flooded carpets. Just stay with Cassian; he’s got a spare couch.”

A spare couch in an apartment already shared by two, with one bathroom, one kitchen, and one bedroom between them. She’s never even met K-2 (there’s a joke there, with his name, but she isn’t exactly sure what it is), and now she’ll have to force him to shuffle off somewhere, leaving her a place to sleep. Or was Cassian the one who normally slept on the couch, with his friend in the bedroom? There was no way to know.

Jyn frowns against the back of her hand before turning around and knocking again, hoping against all hope that no one will answer. Maybe they won't even be here, and she can just jimmy the lock, sleep in the living room, and leave in the morning before either of them get back. It's a Saturday night, after all; maybe they’ve both gone home, visited family, escaped the tiny university town that has trapped everyone else in her program. Or maybe they like to party, and will stay out till tomorrow anyway. Anything would be better than watching the doorknob turn and flinching as Cassian sends her away.

Only he doesn’t—at least, not right away. When he eventually comes to the door, he looks like he's hurried from the shower, his dark hair sticking to the back of his neck, his shirt on inside out (the material just...oh, that can't be fair). He smells like shampoo, and body wash, and shaving cream, the tiniest speck of white still stuck to the edge of his collar. She’s interrupted something, she realizes suddenly. He hasn’t been expecting her.

“Jyn,” he says, her name sounding like half a hello, half an invitation to step inside. Which is crazy; he can’t want her to stay, not when she’s basically an orphaned cat turning up out of nowhere.

“Hey Cassian,” she says, her fingers tightening on the handle of her suitcase. Has the metal always been so cold? “I’m guessing you didn’t get Bodhi’s messages?”

A voice floats out of the apartment from somewhere behind him, annoyed but not upset. “He’s notorious for ignoring his phone,” that someone says, maybe from the kitchen, maybe from the far side of the living room. “I would know; he almost never answers when I call.”

Cassian turns towards the voice, leaning on the wall, his arm propped up against the door. He’s wearing sweatpants—the colour a darker blue than navy, the shade two tones lighter than black—and for all the world looks like he’s trying not to sigh. “K-2,” he says, and it’s a reprimand, but not an unkind one. “Did you see them? You could have told me.”

Jyn looks away, hating the position she’s in, hating that she has to ask this friend of a friend to let her crash here for a few days. "It’ll be fine," Bodhi had said. "I’ve known him all semester. He’s a great guy. He’ll help you out."

He lets her in, at least, and lets her sit in the kitchen, at the table, and even makes her a cup of tea. His distance from her feels safe, and she begins to relax, just a little; enough to appreciate that his apartment is warm and smells like food, enough to appreciate that he’s propped up her suitcase against the couch without asking, that he's hung up her coat on the rack without question.

“I’m sorry about this,” she says, letting the hot tea move through her, the smell of lemon and peppermint making her smile.

Cassian watches her from the counter, closing the fridge with his hip, the movement unconscious. He has another two mugs in his hands.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, speaking softly, and now he finally does sigh, the steam from the hot water bending under the gentle push of his breath. “You’ll just have to let me fight K-2 off the couch. I’d have offered to let you stay anyway, if I’d known.”

That feels like a lie, but Jyn accepts it with a nod, remembering suddenly how he always takes his coffee when he orders from the shop: one cream, two sugar. For weeks, he’d only been a customer she knew, a friendly face, a classmate of Bodhi’s who'd always come by around the same time and always order the same thing. “Sometimes I worry he only comes so he can tip me,” Bodhi would say, whenever Cassian would leave the counter or drift from earshot. “He's always managed to shove a twenty in the tip jar when I’m not looking. Half the time it’s the only reason I can afford groceries.”

_Oh the joys of the student life_ , Jyn would think, but then she'd catch the trembling of Bodhi’s hands, the slight waver in his step, and realize she would do exactly the same if she’d had the money to spare. It was impossible to know Bodhi and not love him, not want to step up and help him after he’d lost the university's most prestigious scholarship (government cuts, the school-board had said; it was the scholarship or the department). She hadn’t known Cassian then, and still doesn’t, even now, sitting in his kitchen, drinking his tea—but knowing he’s been trying to help out in his own small way endears her to him all the same.

K-2, rather predictably, puts up a fight. “I don’t even know her,” he says, “what if she robs us? Your reckless disregard of our safety has always been troubling.”

They argue out of sight, in the apartment’s single bedroom, and despite not really knowing them, not really understanding them, Jyn can imagine their faces, their expressions. She hates knowing she’s been a hassle, but accepts it; she'd knocked on the door, and there’s no way to back out now.

“She’s a friend, not a stranger,” Cassian says. “Just sleep in here with me. You can handle that.”

K-2 makes a sound that might have been a snort. “You mass-produce enough body heat to hard-boil an egg. I’m not sharing a bed with you.”

They argue for a little while longer, but by then Jyn has managed to move towards the door, a single silent step at a time. She's been trying to find a way to step outside and call Bodhi without either of them hearing her leave.

She's nearly there, a heartbeat later, but then she hears Cassian say, “Fine, I’ll sleep on the floor. It’s just for one night; work with me here."

So Jyn pulls her hand from the doorknob in response and sits down on the carpet. She wants to run, but stays where she is, her back against the wall, her knees up against her chest. She hates feeling like she’s begged for help; she should have just stayed in a hostel.

But when Cassian steps out of his bedroom, ultimately finding her there by the door, instead of looking uncomfortable, there’s something open in his expression, apologetic and understanding. He doesn’t try to get too close; he doesn’t ask to sit beside her, or ask her questions. He just gestures with his hand towards the couch.

“It’s all yours,” he says, and he smiles when he does. It’s a little sheepish, she realizes, and it brightens his face, even as he turns away to look out the window as he runs his fingers through the hair at the back of his neck.

“I owe you one,” Jyn says, and it’s almost like they’re friends, almost like they’re neighbours. They could do this. And she’d heard him; it's just for one night.

_One night where I'll hardly sleep_ , she thinks belatedly, tossing and turning on Cassian’s tiny sofa (just long enough to fit her body, and hardly an inch more), the duvet from his bed something she couldn’t refuse, even if that meant him and K-2 had to sleep under something else. Her pillow is comfortable, and she’s sleepy, and she’s safe, but she can’t shake the feeling of the hard floor under her shoulders, imagining Cassian lying there all night long, a surprisingly kind man more willing to curl up on the carpet than send her on her way.

She doesn’t understand what compels her, but at a little past three in the morning, with sleep so heavy against her body she can hardly walk, she slips out of the covers and pads across Cassian’s apartment to his bedroom door. She doesn’t knock; it’s already open just a crack, and from the death-glare K-2 had shot her on his way to the bathroom, his bright blue eyes framed by pitch black hair the colour of a crow, Jyn knows better than to wake him. Instead, she edges the door open just a little bit more, letting some of the moonlight from the open window in the kitchen filter in along the floor. She can see a pillow at the base of the bed, against the frame, but there’s no one there.

Jyn holds her breath. It takes him a moment, but eventually Cassian moves to the fill the doorway, all of him, his movement so smooth and practiced it’s like he expected she would come. He steps around the door and closes it behind him without a sound, his body so close to hers in the darkness that his arms brush against her breath.

“Are you okay?” he whispers, almost mouths, so quiet she almost misses it.

From this distance, she can see the stiffness in his shoulders, the way he’s trying to stretch the muscles without drawing her attention. He keeps his eyes on hers, and somehow there’s nothing but concern on his face, a willingness to move the couch, or find another blanket, or dig up another pillow from who knows where. But he’s tired, too; he’s blinking something from his eyes that isn’t sleep, isn’t even close—something that could almost be pure and overwhelming exhaustion, trying to slowly find the strength to overcome how uncomfortable the floor must be.

So she touches his arm. It’s a light moment of contact.

He follows her to the couch and collapses, unwilling to fight her, unwilling to argue against her offer. She pulls her arms as close against her chest as she can, and lets her forehead rest against the back of the couch. If she tries with all her might, she can make them fit, her back to his, the duvet holding them together. She can imagine that he doesn’t mind, that he’s too tired to care how close she’s pulled him in, how much his touch alarms her, how quickly fear surges and fades inside her body. But he’s shown her kindness, more than she’s known in a long time, and anything is better than the floor.

She must have fallen asleep at some point (but when exactly, she doesn’t know). Her thought last is formless in the dark, but in the morning, if she thinks about it, she can remember hearing Cassian shift in his sleep, his breath even and quiet against the pillow, his body warm and strong behind her. She should have hated it, but as her mind drifted away, she realized she wasn't sure that she could.

* * *

The next night is easier, but no less strange, no less tense. As she expected, though, he fights her.

“It’s only fair,” she says. “I’ll sleep on the floor. Last night was different; we were tired, and it was almost four in the morning. I’ll manage.”

She’d said the same thing earlier that day over breakfast, his frying pan in her hand, a small, neat stack of blueberry pancakes on the counter by her arm. He’d only grunted then, but he fights with his eyes now, his denial harsher, his body language stronger.

She doesn’t know why she can read him so easily. She shouldn’t be able to, and she senses that; other people are easy, and open, and straightforward, but Cassian doesn’t seem to be any of those things. And she hardly knows him; he’s finishing up a master’s degree, and she’s still working through her bachelor’s, their lives crossing only in the tiny coffee shop where she works part time.

He's _letting_ her read him, she realizes then. He wants her to understand him, his thoughts, his position, and somehow he knows that this is the way to do it.

“Bodhi would never forgive me if I let you sleep on the floor,” he says, and he’s leaning against the wall again, like he had in the doorway the night before, evaluating her without moving his eyes, exploring her boundaries, testing her words. “So, that leaves the couch. K-2 won’t give up the bed.”

Jyn nods, but looks away from him quickly, busying herself with pulling plastic wrap over a white dinner platter, watching as the transparency fades to something nearly opaque from the steam coming off the lasagna. “Maybe I can bribe him with more food,” she says.

Cassian crosses his arms, raises his head, and the movement draws her eyes. Through the entryway into the kitchen, she can only just see K-2 sitting on the couch, his laptop on a pillow over his knees. He hasn’t move from that position in hours. "I can’t work anywhere else," he’d said.

“I almost think you can do it,” Cassian says, his voice hushed. “But K-2 will eat anything if he doesn’t have to make it himself.”

Just then, almost as if in response to her plans, there's the most fleeting of warnings: a flicker from the ceiling light, a hiccup from the clock over the stove. Then the power goes out, and the apartment is draped in darkness. K-2, illuminated by his laptop, doesn’t even look up.

“The storm's getting bad,” he says from the couch, the sound of his fingers on his keyboard carrying across the apartment. “Good luck getting any readings done.”

No one replies, but through the darkness Jyn can sense when Cassian moves away from her. Then, despite knowing his phone has a flashlight feature, he stumbles around for a few minutes, moving the curtains back from the apartment’s windows, pulling a blanket up over K-2’s shoulders. Jyn can follow the rustling, the sound of his footfalls on the carpet, the whisper of his breath, but after a while she pushes it from her mind.

She should have left, after the night before. She should have taken her suitcase and wandered back over to Bodhi’s, even if his apartment was the size of a shoebox, and his floor was hardwood, stiffer and meaner than almost any kind of carpet. But she’d given Cassian her number just that morning, watched him type it out into his contacts, and she’d even picked up groceries, two bags full, just as a thank you. She’d promised herself to still be cautious around him, careful, diligent, but she can admit staying with him is considerably better than any alternative she could think of.

“Cassian,” Jyn says into the near silence, broken only at the edges by the sound of K-2 on his laptop. "You haven’t won yet.”

But he’s behind her. All at once, like he's moved through the shadows, more silent than the arrival of dawn. If he meant to startle her, he's almost managed it, her body tense and wary.

"Sorry," he says casually, moving around her, unassuming and distracted. He picks something up, a shape, an angle, then puts something down and moves away. "It's really up to you. I'm just the one who pays the rent."

From someone else, that might have sounded harsher, more controlling; underhanded, maybe. But Cassian isn't trying to be; he's just tired, and his voice is gentle and soft. He'll let her decide, he seems to say, a weight behind her with no face, no lines, no edges, no corners. He won't push her.

So Jyn ends up sleeping on the floor, and as a small compromise she let's Cassian give her the duvet, let's him believe she caved under the touch of his hand, under his silent insistence whispered to her through the warmth of his skin. It's just so she can cushion her body against the carpet, she tells herself; it's not because she wants to wrap herself in something that smells like Cassian's body wash.

Still, she has to admit, there are much more dangerous things to want than _that_.


	2. Chapter 2

Cassian can’t decide on the exact moment he realizes he _likes_ Jyn, the moment he starts looking for her in the morning, her shadow on the kitchen wall, the warmth of her near his hand, his fingers splayed by the edge of her pillow. It happens slowly, with none of the fierceness he expects; she slides behind him and her chest brushes his back, she steps around him and her hand brushes his arm, she sits beside him and her hip brushes his hand. He eases into it, carefully, letting his guard down, until the one night Jyn simply isn’t there, and the small sound that settles in his chest unsteadies him.

“You like her,” K-2 says, perched on the couch beside him, his laptop casting a fierce and angry glare over his face. In the light, his eyes are a piercing, almost shocking grey, like the colour has completely leached from them, leaving only a ghost behind. “If you’re worried, you should just call her.”

“And ask what?” Cassian replies, standing up and sitting back down. He’s restless in a way he’s never been before, and can’t stop himself from looking towards the door, towards the lock, towards the shadow that isn’t appearing through the key-hole. “Where she is? She’s twenty-one; she doesn’t have to come back at night.”

He’d almost said home—that she doesn’t have to come _home_. But his apartment isn’t her home, and she doesn’t treat it that way; she’s still wary around him, and asks about everything, from using his butter to drinking his milk, to borrowing lengths of tin foil to replacing his toothpaste with a new tube. Everything's turned into a question around her: can she sit, can she eat, can she read, can she stay? She wakes up every morning and smiles at him over breakfast, like she’s thankful he’s still there, like she’s thankful he doesn’t hate her.

He leans back at the thought of her, staring up at the ceiling. There’s something broken in Jyn’s eyes that he almost recognizes, and he wonders if that’s why he let her lead him away—from the floor and from his room—that first night, let her lay down beside him and fall asleep. If he closes his eyes, he can still feel her there, her back against his, her body flush against him, her breathing warm and steady. She still sleeps on the floor most nights, but sometimes she seems to summon the courage: she’ll lay down across the couch and pull her chest against the back, leaving as much space for him as she can, asking him to sit, to lie down, to fall asleep with her body against him. He’s never refused, but they never speak, not on the couch, not where they could breathe each other in like the chill off the sea. It’s an intimacy they might never share.

Cassian pushes himself up and wanders into the kitchen, moving from one seat to another, one collapse after the other. He rubs his eyes and imagines her, asleep at the library, maybe, her cheek on her arm, her lips touching the corner of a book, an imprint of her left on the page. He wants her to sleep here, he realizes, where he can place a cup of tea beside her hand, can drape an extra sweater over her back. She reminds him of Bodhi, in a way, a little lost, but trying to find her place. Scared, but never—even for a single moment—vulnerable.

He waits until just after midnight before getting in his car. There’s a hush in the parking garage before his engine shatters it, humming to life. He’ll find her, and the thought cements itself inside him just as the rain hits his windshield, wilder than before, the storm from the last two weeks (a messenger of spring?) greeting him coldly. He calls her twice, but there’s no answer; her voicemail isn’t active, and the line just dies, over and over.

“Come on, Jyn,” Cassian says, calling her again, pulling his car around the corner and over the bridge that crosses the river. The night is broken by flashes of lightning, brief and still, before nothing of the city remains but darkness, a shadow behind a tree, a shape darting across an open lawn. There’s a bus that passes him down an empty street, but there’s no one inside, the driver sitting alone surrounded by steel seats.

He doesn’t know how he finds her, not in the darkness, but he guesses her height and pulls over, the silhouette flinching in the headlights, moving back, away from the road.

Cassian rolls down the window. “Jyn,” he calls. “Get in. I’m already here.”

He leans across the center console and pushes the door open, watching as the rain soaks the upholstery, as the wind snakes inside and crashes against the glass. Everything feels like it’s shaking: his hands, his steering wheel, his gear shift, his rearview mirror. But she steps inside and shuts the door, silencing everything in the night but the sound of her breathing.

“Cassian?” she says, and she’s out of breath, maybe from running, maybe from shock. There’s water in her hair and around her eyes, her hood soaked through, her backpack making a puddle on the floorboards. She’s shivering, and her teeth are clicking together, her body turned away from him as if to hide, to shield herself.

He wants to pull her close, to urge her into the backseat and against his chest; he wants to rub her arms and legs, and still the shivering leaking from her like poison. But she looks so small, on her half of the seat, her face half-turned towards the window and out into the night. So he doesn’t do anything, doesn’t move much at all. He turns up the heat, but lets his hand rest there, against the buttons, the yellow hazard light flashing under his thumb.

“Tell me what I can do,” he whispers to her. “Tell me how I can help you.”

She looks at him, and something in her voice comes back together, and she shrugs, stronger, fiercer. “Drive,” she says. “Can you drive us back?”

And he can, so he does, through the streets that looks like shapeless mouths in the eerie violence of the storm, swallowing the hood of his car again and again, before spitting him back out on the other side of the shadows. He passes a convenience store he knows, a school, an empty park, but his apartment feels like it’s three hundred miles away, the gas in his tank nowhere near enough to get them home.

When he pulls into the garage, he offers to let her out. He doesn’t have to walk with her, or near her, or beside her; if she doesn’t want him to see, doesn’t want to be embarrassed, she doesn’t have to. But she refuses; she gets out of the car and waits within earshot, by the pillars, as he backs into his spot, killing the exhaust and replacing the silence.

In the stairwell, outside his door, Jyn stops on the fourth last step, reaching out to grab Cassian’s arm. She misses, but catches his sleeve, pulling the material between her fingers like the rope on a life preserver. “How did you find me?” she asks.

Under her question is another one. Why did you come?

“Did you phone die?” Cassian asks, and Jyn nods, slowly, once, then twice. “I just thought, you’d have followed the bus route home. That’s what I would have done.”

“From the university?” Jyn doesn’t sound like she believes him. “You’d have asked someone to call a friend, you’d have taken a cab. You wouldn’t have walked.”

Cassian sits down. Just there, in the stairs, with the dirt and the mud and the dust and the cracked wooden railing. There’s enough room for two, but Jyn doesn’t move. “What do you want me to say?” he asks her, looking up into her face, water running from the lengths of her hair, her hoodie still damp and cold against her forehead. “Maybe I'd have done those things, sure. But you’re not wrong for walking.”

“No?” She almost sounds angry, but not with him. She turns away. “I couldn’t remember your number,” she says into the space in front of them. “I couldn’t remember Bodhi’s, or the shops, or the university’s, or anyone’s. And I didn’t have the change for the bus. I didn’t have anything.”

Cassian makes a gesture in the air, like he’s writing on her arm. She laughs, but it sounds small and broken and sad, like the little smile on the edge of her lips. “You’re really something, you know that?” she asks him.

She steps forward, one step, one step closer than she’d been before. Higher, taller. A shadow over his body in the light from the wall fixture.

“Are you okay?” he asks, holding out his hand. She surprises him by taking it, and holding it, but her skin is so, so cold.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she says, and with her other hand pulls down her hood, lets the dampness rush from her face, the coldness, the fear. She seems to relax.

“Is it bad?” she whispers, murmurs, breathes into the air. “Is it bad that I thought you wouldn’t come? That I didn’t expect you to?”

He stands up, using her hand as only the slightest bit of leverage. She lets him.

“I worried,” he says, and he shrugs, like anyone would have worried, like anyone would have gone searching for her in the middle of the night, when the winds were wild and the night was alive with anger.

“I’m not used to that,” she says, and she urges him closer, just a little. Just enough.

Cassian closes his eyes. He has to; he feels compelled by the look on her face, the softness, the calm. He doesn’t want to be wrong, and he doesn’t want to make a mistake, not with her. Not with Jyn, with her beautiful, beautiful eyes, and the way she’s looking at him right now like he’s all she’s ever seen.

She brushes his nose with hers—pulls back, drifts away, tries again. The contact thrills him, electrifies him, but he waits, and waits, until the top of her lips brush against him, and suddenly that touch is everything that’s happened between them, every accidental touch. Her hand against his, their backs together; her arm, her hip, her elbow, her chest. He moves to meet her, to show her, and her lips are soft and willing beneath him, open and gentle.

He kisses her there, in the stairs, and she kisses him back, sweet and timid, a single moment extended and re-experienced a thousand times. She stops and pulls away, but he lingers in the space between them, like he can keep her there with him, like he can ask her to want him to.

She’s looking down at him again, his face, his eyes, his mouth, his nose. She’s holding his hand, and breathing him in, and her smile looks honest and free.

“Can I kiss you again?” Cassian asks her, as softly as he can. He’s careful not to touch her anywhere else, not to raise his hand, to gesture.

Jyn closes her eyes.

She tastes like the rain, he realizes, and she smells like his shampoo, like the soap he keeps under the sink, like the deterrent he throws in his washing machine. She smells like pine trees and fallen leaves and the salt from the river, and her lips feel warm, warmer with each kiss he asks for, each kiss he presses for. She lingers and he breathes against her neck, her back against the railing, their hands together, nothing else touching, just hovering, just close.

“Can I kiss you again?” he asks her, and her necklace tastes like metal where he kisses her against her throat, where he traces his mouth along her collar, as deeply as the cut of her sweater will allow.

Her hand touches his face, the edge of his jaw, and he looks at her, up into her eyes. “Can this be enough?” she asks, and she’s shaking again, like her knees will fall away from under her.

Cassian pulls back, just a little, just enough for her to slip past him and up the stairs. But she doesn’t go; she doesn’t run. She doesn’t move.

He squeezes her hand. “I’ll sleep on the floor,” he promises, and he knows his voice his husky, worn, and low. “I’ll be wherever you need me to be.”

She uses her thumb to touch the corner of his mouth, and after everything he’s experienced tonight, it’s the most intimate thing she’s done. “Sleep on the couch,” she says. “Just make sure you leave enough room for me.”

* * *

It becomes a pattern, a silent one, always unspoken between them. On the mornings Jyn kisses him, he knows to expect her later, maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day. Kisses in the morning mean she’s unsure, that she needs some space, but that they’re okay; she's just trying to reassure him without speaking. On the nights Jyn kisses him, he knows they’ll share the couch again, share the tiny space they carve out for each other like burrowing animals in the desert sand.

Each kiss is a quiet affair, a curious thing, and for every kiss Cassian wants Jyn gives him three, quick and light and careful, like she’s still trying to find the shape of him beneath her, the limits of where he ends and where he begins. He likes watching her explore, and slowly, she offers up her hands. She touches his palms, and his wrists, and moves up his body; his arms, his shoulders, the base of his neck. The furthest he goes with his hands are her elbows, to the soft skin in the crux of her arm, but his lips know every curve of her neck, every rise of her throat, and every line of her collarbone.

He doesn’t want to surprise her, and wanders only where she lets him go, respectfully close but not too close, never too close. She pulls back, sometimes, when it gets to be too much for her, and if he waits, she always comes back, quiet and careful, but willing, and her smile lights up his heart.

One night, one precious night, she kisses him, just once, just inside the doorway, her coat still pulled tight against her, her shoes still on. “Won’t you wait for me?” she asks, but she bites his lip, and he trembles.

“Do you want me to?” he asks her back, against her mouth.

He expects her to laugh, but she doesn’t. She drops her bag and slides into his arms, letting his hands catch her at the waist, his chest against hers. “No,” she says.

Cassian pushes her back, pins her against the wall, leans in and close all around her, crowding her into the space between his body and the doorway. It’s more force than he’s ever shown, and she responds by deepening the kiss, by threading her fingers into his hair, by slipping the tips of her fingers into the collar of his button-up shirt.

Her kisses are hungry tonight, thrilling and exciting; she pulls away again and again to kiss him rapidly, or holds the back of his head and won’t let him go. She sucks on his lip and tightens her hold on his shoulders, struggling a little against him without trying to get away, inviting a response.

“Jyn,” Cassian begs, because he can’t stand it, can’t stand the way she’s nudging her body against his, pulling at his hair, pulling at his clothes. He unties the belt on her coat, fumbling with the zipper.

“Can you lift me?” she asks, and then her coat is open on either side of her body, his hand against her hip, the other against her face.

“Jump,” he says. And she does, with his hands under her thighs and her legs behind his back, her arms around his neck. He’s strong, but so is she; they keep each other up against the wall, up above the floor.

Cassian kisses her throat, and Jyn _whimpers_ , a faint sound, suppressed and embarrassed. She kisses what’s in reach and trails her lips along his face, willing his lips back to hers.

He carries her to the couch, but as much as he wants her under his body, he won’t trap her, won’t force her back. He turns around at the last second and sits instead, letting her settle in his lap, letting her legs bend around him and rest against his thighs.

“Is this okay?” he asks, his hands on her waist as she shrugs out of her coat.

"Don’t talk,” she says, but she’s laughing.

It’s the closest they’ve ever been, with their faces so close together; Cassian’s hands roam over her back and the bottom of her ribs, avoiding her skin, teasing her with the promise of aggressive but never giving in. She shifts in his lap and it’s _torture_ , but instead of shying away from that, from the growing hardness between his legs, she looks at him with her eyes open wide, her lip between her teeth.

“I don’t want to go further than this,” she whispers.

Cassian kisses her gently, the momentum lost, but she’s sweet in his hands, tracing little circles on his wrist. She starts to move again, slowly, grinding her hips back and forth, and _god_ does Cassian _moan_ , his mouth against her throat, his hands holding her hips as tightly as he can.

He can feel her smile through a shift in the air, through the shift of her breath; she keeps one hand on the back of the couch and the other on his shoulder, to ground her movement. She rocks them both and almost buzzes with the energy, murmuring something that almost sounds like pleasure into his hair.

She stops when her breathing gets a little ragged, and it’s like she’s tired, exhausted, pushed as close to the edge as she’s ever come without falling. She whispers his name, and he eases her onto the couch, onto her side, his back to the couch, her back to the open living room air.

“Jyn?” he asks.

“Mhmm,” she says. It’s not an answer, but it's enough.

He pushes her hair back from her face, flushed with kisses and fire and something more tender than passion.

“Where have you been?” he asks her, the words as gentle as he can manage. Reverent. Awestruck.

She kisses his forehead, lingering longer than she should be. It’s not an answer, but it’s enough.


	3. Chapter 3

Cassian has gotten used to sleeping with Jyn against his chest. The warmth of her, the closeness; it's unusual for him to wake up without it, the lingering in the morning something new, the press of her neck against the curve of his mouth, his lips searching for her with his eyes closed and his breath both damp and humid. Her nightshirt is always too loose against her body, the lines of her shoulder and part of her back nearly naked to him, exposed beneath his touch. He kisses her there, when she whispers his name, when she calls to him in her sleep and shifts in his arms. He holds her while she trembles, her nerves alight through her skin, but this is as far as they've come, as close.

Her cellphone has a ringtone set for strangers; its loud, like a knock against the wall, intrusive and unkind, insistent and prolonged. She stirs against his body, her legs tangled in with his, her hair against the pillow, the soft, round curve of her cheek against his mouth.

He's kissing his way to her lips when she stops him, her hand slipping up between them, cupping his face. "That might be important," she whispers.

Cassian considers saying something suave, something moving and sweet and endearing. But instead he says, "It might not be."

She's never turned to face him, not like this, not in his arms. She'll turn just a little, twisting just enough to reach him when she needs to, but to face him, nose to nose, thigh to thigh, mouth to mouth, is not something she's ever done. She does it now.

"Cassian," she murmurs, and it shivers out of her with regret, oddly cold to the touch, like the brush of her bare skin against his hand, near her hip, around her naval.

He hands her the phone, unplugging it from the wall as he does, the cord thin and black like what lingers of the shadows on the floor from the break of dawn. He knows the silence now is cursed, the stillness; the ringing is gone, but the secret of its caller remains in the air.

Jyn calls the number back, knowing it by heart. A stranger who isn't a stranger. A voice he wishes was nameless.

"That's great news," she feigns, and Cassian can hear the other woman on the line like she's there in the room, like she's lying between him and Jyn, a presence more solid than steel. "Of course I'll come back today. We can talk about the rent when I get in. Yes, no, I understand."

She hangs up, closing her eyes as the smooth plastic case of her phone rubs against her shirt, the light from the screen disappearing where Cassian's chest curves against the couch. "Your landlord?" He asks.

She doesn't answer right away, and her hesitation breaks when he squeezes her hand. Her smile is small, smaller than her hands, smaller than anything Cassian has ever seen.

"Will you drive me there?" she asks. Her face is still dark, but softer now, seeing him nod.

"You know I will," he says.

She waits until midnight on a Saturday night, when the streets of downtown are crowded with bodies that smell like dancing and contact. She lives far enough way that the sound of the music only _just_ carries when the engine on Cassian's car is dead and still, the air moving fiercely, the wind everywhere at once.

"It's a nice place," he says, pulling her suitcase up the sidewalk, keeping pace with her when she moves up the empty driveway. _It's not for the tenants_ , she'd said.

"I only rent a room," she replies, and her keyring is emptier than Cassian would like it to be.

He reaches out for her, a moment too late; Jyn opens the downstairs door to the house without looking back, the shape of her body disappearing into the darkness. He wanders in to find her, her hand drifting along the wall, her fingers searching for a new light switch, the smell of her hair lost to the smothering closeness of new drywall and new paint, new hardwood and new carpeting. It’s like a rag held over his mouth.

"Is it safe to be back here?” he asks her, her presence at his side, her suitcase by the door. He touches her hip and she stills, her breath moving with surprise as she turns to face him.

They’re close, in the shadows of the room; he can feel her pull him closer, like she’s afraid to let him go. There’s an unspoken question between them, caught on the edges of their clothing. If he speaks it aloud, or she does, he’s afraid of what the other will say.

Jyn breaks the silence, hitting the switch with her other hand. Cassian looks around without taking his eyes away from her, measuring the space.

“It’s not much,” she says, and she’s apologizing, like the furniture was her choice, like the measurements were her fault. It’s amazing that three bedrooms fit in a basement hardly large enough to fit three cars.

“How much is rent?” Cassian asks, taking a step back, feeling the weight of her eyes on his face, afraid she’s trying to push him away.

But the pain disappears; the spark of it, tiny and bright, fading from the lines around her mouth. “It’s going up,” she says, and she shrugs. “I was paying dirt for this place, but now everything is new. One of the other girls who lives here texted me about it.”

“It can’t increase that much,” Cassian says, looking into the bedroom just behind him and somehow knowing that it isn’t Jyn’s. “And your lease locks in you for at least a year.”

“I didn’t pay ahead,” Jyn explains, crossing her arms, looking from the wall to the floor, to the fresh coat of soft, cream-coloured paint to the shine in the dark oak flooring. “We only had to pay month by month. Like a boarding house.”

Cassian senses it, a moment before he speaks. “How much is it going up?”

Jyn meets his eyes. “Enough,” she says.

It isn’t a question, and Cassian knows Jyn would never ask if it was. She’s tough like that; private, unwilling to believe she can’t solve her own problems, find her own way to flourish and succeed. And he’s always liked that about her, that fire, that determination, even as it makes him wonder where he fits in her life, how much space is left for him to fill.

“You know if you don’t find another place, you’re always welcome to come back,” he says, but he’s quiet, and he speaks only when he’s looking away from her, pulling Jyn’s suitcase over the lip of the door jamb, urging the wheels across the fresh, new floors. He can almost see the tracks they leave, like trails through the sand.

Jyn lets out her breath, not laughing, but nearly. “K-2 won’t give up the couch again; he just got it back.”

Cassian makes a decision then, just as he’s stepping past her; he moves slowly, but settles again in the same place as before, at her side, with his hand on her hip. He knows what he wants, but braces for her refusal; he’ll weather it, if only just.

“Then share the bed with me,” he whispers, edging closer, looking down towards her face. He touches her cheek, filling both of his hands with the shape of her body. “Stay with me, if you want.”

“Is that the solution?” Jyn asks, moving into his hands, letting her lips touch his wrist without kissing him, the pressure light but warm, her mouth soft and lingering and gentle.

“Name another,” he says, pressing the words to her forehead, to the hair that’s loose from her bun, a few strands caught along the side of her face. “I’m open to suggestions.”

She smiles against his throat, letting him in, pulling him closer. He teases his hand under the hem of her shirt, letting his fingers rest at the small of her back.

“Maybe,” she says, and then she really does kiss him there, against his throat, against his neck. He nudges her backwards, her shoulders connecting with the wall, but she won’t let him stay there, his body pushing up against her.

Jyn moves forward, but Cassian moves back when she does. So she keeps him close, tugging on the waistband of his jeans, making their bodies touch. Then she turns him around, with more speed than he expected, before pinning him where she was before, keeping her eyes on his mouth.

“You’ve never asked me for anything,” she whispers, and it trembles out of her like relief. She has one hand in his hair now, threading through it, guiding his lips to where she wants him, to the exposed neck of her shirt. Her other hand wanders, from his jeans to his chest, then down, tugging at the button there.

Cassian fights back the moan in the depth of his throat, feeling her palm move against the shape of him, his body hard in her hand, harder when she slides down the zipper and reaches inside his jeans. His boxers are damp against his hip, in a spot that she teases with her thumb, the rest of him eager for her, his body thrumming beneath his skin.

His head lolls back, and Cassian has never felt so exposed before, not with all his clothes still on, not in an empty apartment on a Saturday night with the footsteps of another family upstairs, their television turned low, the squeak of the floorboards steady as a heartbeat. There’s heat moving up his back, and suddenly his grip has no purchase; he can’t hold Jyn tight enough, his fingers cradling her head, the elastic from her hair by his feet.

“If I stay,” she whispers, and Cassian can’t speak, can’t manage anything out of his mouth that isn’t breath and empty sound and the shape of her name. “You’d have to let me help with the rent.”

How she's managing to negotiate with half her mind, watching him with half her attention, he doesn't know, but he senses she’s responding to something she’s afraid of, using all the control she hopes she has. It kills him, but Cassian takes her wrists and squeezes them, easing her off of his body.

“Move in with me,” he says, and his voice is husky and low, pitched so only she can hear him in a room no emptier than the rest of the world. “I should have asked in the car. I should have asked this morning.” He pauses, but only long enough to kiss her, to prove to her he’s lucid, he’s sober, he’s willing. “I meant to.”

She wraps her arms around his neck, relaxing against his body, her smile easier and more open, more honest. She’s suddenly very timid, almost embarrassed; unsure, if the word could capture the way she kisses him, her fingers playing with the hair at the nape of his neck.

“Why?” she asks him, softly, almost too quiet to be heard.

He reaches down when she speaks, carrying her as he walks through the apartment, his arms beneath her legs. And she’s laughing now, like she almost understands.

“Which room is yours?” he wonders aloud, nudging the third door open with his knee. The bed is nothing but a mattress, the linens stripped away to leave only an invitation, a wanting.

“Does the emptiness give it away?” she asks, but half her question is lost to the push of air from her lungs when she hits the bed.

* * *

Jyn isn’t sure why she doesn’t just say yes. Yes, of course I’ll move in with you; yes, of course I’ll stay. But she’s lodged the words in the back of her throat, letting other things take precedent, like _please_ and _ah_ and _oh god_. Cassian’s weight on her body feels right, somehow, and she lets him take a few liberties after asking her first.

“Can I take off your shirt?” he whispers into her shoulder, her lips on his neck, his hands on the bare skin of her chest.

“Can I kiss you here?” he asks, trailing his mouth up from her waist, teasing the edges of her bra with the warmth of his breath.

“Will you stop me if you need to?”

Jyn tightens the hold she has on Cassian’s shirt, watching his hands still their fumbling on the button of her jeans. He’s sitting back, his body held carefully over her legs, his boxers peeking through the zipper of his own jeans, the material clinging to his hips by sheer force of will. She closes her eyes; this man would never hurt her, not the Cassian who holds her while she sleeps, who plays with her hair, who makes her tea and strokes her back and kisses her like she’s the most important thing he’s ever known.

He waits for her. Maybe he always will, for as long a time as she needs.

She ends up taking off his shirt first, lifting the bottom hem up and over his head. She kisses him along his arm, lingering with a kiss on his hand, letting him lower her back towards the bed. She sinks into the mattress with more weight than before, and almost holds her breath when Cassian tugs off her jeans, the drag of them against her legs sending shivers up her body.

He slides between her knees and grazes his fingers along her inner thighs. He moves higher, kissing her throat, adding to the tiny marks she knows he’s left behind. He slows down, leaning on the bed in the space just under her arm, moving his hands in circles, his fingers sometimes lingering just inside the cup of her bra.

“Are you going to take that off?” she asks him, and for a split second imagines the sight of their shoes by the basement door, her roommates finding them by her abandoned suitcase in the wee hours of the morning.

He laughs against her chest, the sound traveling through his body, making his shoulders shake under her hands. Has she always loved that about him?

“Maybe I like it,” he says, but he shifts his hands under her chest, centering himself back over her body, and undoes the latch.

Jyn has a long list of nevers. She’s never been this naked in front of someone else before, she’s never felt so comfortable; she’s never trusted anyone so completely, she’s never wanted anything quite so much. She’s afraid he’ll pull back now, leaving her here, in her empty room, surrounded by the ghost of a life that will never be hers again. Quiet nights, an empty fridge, a lonely bed. She smiles.

“Can I help you with those?” she asks, and without waiting for his answer she shrugs him out of his clothes, out of everything that’s left, and suddenly her underwear is all that keeps her hidden, all that keeps him apart from her.

“There’s a condom in my coat pocket,” she tells him, gesturing to where it lies in a heap by the foot of her bed. “I stole it from your nightstand.”

She expects him to raise his eyebrow, to tease her, but his expression is heavy and serious.

“I didn’t want you to know,” he says softly. “I didn’t want you to think—”

She pulls him down against her, kissing him gently. “It was just in case,” she replies. “I appreciate it, I swear.”

He does raise his eyebrow at that, and the mood is lighter, more flirtatious again. “Then maybe you’ll appreciate that I keep an emergency one in my wallet.”

Jyn considers what she wants to say. “Don’t get cocky” is almost what slips from her, but Cassian’s hands are a terrible distraction, and what comes out instead sounds almost like, “I have a feeling that I might.”

* * *

Cassian takes off Jyn’s underwear more slowly than her bra, dragging out the moment for as long as he can manage, as long as he can handle. It drops onto the floor, and lies still with the rest of their clothes, lacy and grey and unassuming. He wants to ask her permission; he wants to watch her consider his every move, and flush at everything he has to say. But he doesn’t have the words for what he wants now; it’s just a feeling, low in his chest, poised and intense.

He leans over her body, the stickiness of the condom still on his fingers. He kisses her with her arms behind his back, one hand on his side, the other on his shoulder. She hasn’t opened her eyes even once since he’s gotten close to her again, his hips between her thighs, the heat of him right between her legs. She shivers at the contact, at the little bumps and grazes, but won’t hold his gaze.

“Tell me you won’t hurt me,” she whispers softly, when she feels him reach his arm back, between their bodies. “Tell me it doesn’t hurt, the first time.”

Cassian stills, her vulnerability overwhelming him. “I’ll be as gentle as I can,” he promises. “You know I will be.”

She opens her eyes. He tells her she’s beautiful.

And it doesn’t hurt; he doesn’t let it. He moves so slowly, and every time he shifts a little closer to her, a little deeper, he waits, watching her face, her micro-expressions, searching for any pain. She’s tense, but he soothes her, helps her relax to his touch. She gasps, and shudders, and murmurs little nothings against his body, but she doesn’t cry out.

Cassian eases into her, breathing slowly, taking his time. He pulls back, just a little, and moves deeper again, letting her adjust to the feeling, to the sensation of him moving inside her. She grips his shoulder, her fingernails pressing into his skin; she wants him closer, and she asks him without speaking.

When he moves a little faster, rocks a little harder, she moans, leaning her head back, turning her face away from him. She moves one of her hands into his hair and murmurs in his ear, shaking with the way he’s making her feel, as if surprised and relieved at the gentleness of him, of the pleasure. He tries to memorize every sound she makes, every expression that pulls at her mouth and colours her throat; he tries to remember how many time she whispers his name, the repetition like a mantra. _Cassian. Cassian._

The bed creaks when Cassian loses himself a little, distracted by the way Jyn feels, by the soft, breathless way he’s clinging to him, her eyes slipping open and closed when one of them moans. He wants her to climax first, but when he reaches down to touch her between her legs, eager to please, she jerks his hand away. “Don’t stop,” she says, and she’s talking about the rest of him, the rhythm of him moving in and out of her, steady and uncoordinated.

He kisses her sloppily, catching the side of her mouth. _Next time_ , he promises her, and realigns himself over her body.

His own climax is an almost private thing, contained and controlled. He makes a small sound, a groan, a gasp, and it’s like every emotion he’s every felt spirals through him. He says her name, clipped and sudden, and his hips jerk twice, the press of Jyn’s body all around him utterly _electric_. His breaths are ragged, harsh and broken; he shivers, the feeling surging along his spine and through his blood. He groans again, hushed and quiet, before bracing himself against her with his face in her hair.

“I’ve got you,” she whispers, and he relaxes, letting just a little more of his weight rest against her chest. He closes his eyes and tries to concentrate on nothing but this moment, the smell of her body, the sound of her voice, the softness of her skin, the taste of her lips. He’s trembling from the intimacy of it, from the tiny space he’s carved for himself in both of their lives.

He rolls over after a little while, pulling her to him. She moves carefully, not with discomfort, but an _ache_ —that’s how she describes it. Not painful, not bad, but ever-present, a thrumming, a pressure, a release. He strokes her back with the tips of his fingers, trying to stay awake, but at some point she starts to sing softly, or hum, and he drifts off to sleep.

* * *

Jyn knows she can’t watch him for long; she needs to turn off the basement light and pull her suitcase into the room, press the lock on her bedroom door. She needs to grab a blanket from the linen closet and plug both of their phones into the wall to charge. She needs to do so much.

But she can't stop watching Cassian sleep, and the thought of him stirring without her here, his eyes fluttering open, his arms empty and cold, locks her in place. She kisses his cheek and brushes his hair from his forehead, letting him breathe against her neck, letting his body cool under her touch. She should cover herself with a sheet, with her clothes, with something, but she doesn’t; instead, she rests her head on the curve of his shoulder, on the space between the edge of his body and his chest, and sleeps.


End file.
